Apparatus and methods for managing expanded capacity of virtual volumes in a storage system

Abstract

Methods and apparatus for expanded capacity virtual volumes in a virtualized storage system. A storage controller of the storage system parses a SCSI command block as it is received to generate a tag value indicating a segment of a virtual volume to which the command block is directed.

How it works

Addresses the challenge of handling virtual volumes that exceed the traditional 2-terabyte limit. The solution divides large virtual volumes into manageable 2TB segments and uses a content parsing circuit paired with content addressable memory to rapidly select the correct mapping data for each I/O request — enabling large-scale virtual volume management without CPU bottlenecks.